Lion King (1994) with Naomi Ekperigin

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Speaker 1: On the beck dol Cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Dronte and he's Jamie Loftiz. And here we are talking about women in film once again. Wow, brave of us, honestly, so brave, incredible. We should get awards. We got one once oh yeah, that Female Comedy Award for Yeah. So it's about damn time we have another one here that wyah demand it anyway, So we talk about the representation of women in movies, using the Bechtel test as a way to initiate a larger conversation. Jamie, what's the Bechtel Test? Oh, I'll tell you. I'm sorry, I was just burping off. Um, I will tell you. The Bechtel test is a medium match invented by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel that requires of a piece of media that there be two female identifying characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. They also need to have names. It is also sometimes called the back to Wallace test because it was a collaborative effort. How do I do? That? Was incredible? I honestly was just holding on second Purp that whole time. And if you could just take it away, I'm going to take care of that. Sure. So today an anticipation, thank you, an anticipation of the upcoming live action remake of Disney's The Lion King. We are talking about The Lion King. Blankang there. God. I mean, Disney is evil enough, but the fact that they're making us cover every single one of their fucking movies as a part of their sinister world takeover scheme, I resent it. It's tiring. I am excited to see this movie. I will be seeing it. I haven't seen any of the live remakes in theaters, but this is the one. I'm a loser. They're nice because you have Amcy Stubbs there, but this, this, I think is the one that's going to break me because I love the link ship. So let's talk about the one from nine and here to join us in that conversation, We've got comedian actor co host of Couples Therapy podcasts, and you know her from our when Harry Met Sally episode and our Black Panther episode time. Yes, it's Naomi comparagon and welcome. So you are making history right now on the Bechtel Cast as our first ever three time guest. However, this is the first time that it's just the three of us all at once talking together. Because the first time, if you recall for when Harry met Sally, I wasn't. Jennie was on presidence. It's just you and I and in the Mike's Hard Lemonade you drink in her honor, that was I feel like a presence. I felt like I was there. You were embodied in that Mike's Hard lemonade. Yes, yes, And then the second time Jamie and I were both president, but so was if you wadi Way was talking about Black Panther with all of us history making anyways, so welcome back. Thanks for being here so much for having, of course, for Disney's first black film. We'll tell us about your history in relationship with the Lion King. Well, I do recall seeing The Lion King in the movie theaters. What was that? I would have been ten. I would have been ten prime time I saw it, and I saw it with my cousin and the probably aunt took us and I was like, did it come out over the summer April? Okay, So we saw it together and I remember my cousin who was um. She was always like a cool tough girl, you know, and I remember her. She cried during the Lion King and I was like, and she was like, somebody's like. I was like, this movie got us all. Wait it says jun Sorry, I was looking at the soundtrack. Never mind that came out so we can all get cromed. Because I started it was like full of bops watching it was like single soundtrack is and it's like all the most of the songs are in the first half of the movie and then there's not many songs in the second half this movie. We're watching it back, You're like, there's some weird tone ship going on, but I'm here for it. There's like in the final battle scene, it's like timon and drag cut to murder scene, cut to Rafiki is a ninja cut to murder scene. Like it's so wild, totally inconsistent, but I love it. Paste a little funky as well, pasteball funky as well. I felt like in rewatching again obviously at the age ten, I wasn't sitting here being like, wow, these total shifts, but it did feel like, you know, watching it grown, I was like, really, you've got thirty minutes before it really pops off. And then everything happened real fast, and they basically used two musical numbers to cover the space of like ten years one of them right, and then they use the other one to cover like romance, like in the space of one song. Okay, I guess there, Okay, I definitely have sex. There is a in the like I like, I remember that. So that shot of Nala being like sexy it's in the grass and she's like I was like, how did they fake this lion look like a coquette? You know what I mean? This is you can tell this is a male dominated production for many reasons. But the lion fucked me as is like ship It's insane. That is that is I'm literally blown away, Like I was like, how did they? And I just like, we gotta get an animator on the horn. We gotta figure out what that brainstorm this what's the brainstorming conversation? It's like, how do I convey horny nos in this lion's eyes and then what is the art technique? And it creates the centrality and I was like watching there. They released it on DVD at some point with a ton of like extra features and some of them are on YouTube, and like the animators really really studied animals to be able to like animate them. So I'm like, did they get a lion horny? Like is that based on did they watch lions have sex? And they're like, this is actually not gross, this is actually really helpful for my job. Well, you know, they did legit go to Africa, they went to Kenyan, was like, Okay, what's going on here, Let's get boots on the ground. And I believe part of that was watching animals fuck and being like this is productive, guys, Yeah, this is actually for art. Just the camera. They tell h R they're taking the day off, but they're actually going to watch animals have sex. What a messy? So in theaters did you watch it much after that? Or is that like the only time. I feel like I must have seen it a couple of times after that, But that might have been my peak of Disney, you know what I mean, Like ten eleven years old, that's when I'm watching all that stuff and I like them all and then I kind of age outing, So that was so definitely. Lion King from me is probably like the peak Disney when that drone was amazing. Yes, Jamie, what about you? What's your relationship? Oh? Man, I love this movie very much. I might have. I think I was too young to see it in the theaters. I was just one when I came up there. When were you born? Was born in August two? Okay, I have to go. I did not sign up to doctor someone who didn't see Clue listen to theaters. Originally, that's my rule for all human interaction. You did not see Clu, listen to the theaters, I can't with you. I might have. Might my mom went and left me on the floor. She didn't do that. She did that a few times, and I was a kid. There's like a rated like PG thirteen or our movie, and she'd bring me and then she'd just be like here you go, and that I would just like sit on the floor and listen. She definitely I think it was the wedding planner that I remember sitting on the floor and hearing but not being able to watch. Uh. But I mean, I've seen this movie easily a hundred times. Like we my mom ran a daycare out of our house and so there was a VHS in at all times, and like, this is a crowd pleaser. You can shut up a house full of kids by turning on the Lion King. Yeah, I loved it. We had I remember, between me and my all of my cousins, they were like McDonald's toys and they're like a little Finger puppets, and everyone was allowed to go to McDonald's once a week and we were trying to like crowdsource the full set and I don't know, I just love it so much. Sing along tapes we had, like those didn't even have those Disney sing along Disney joints. Loved about Little Cricket. Yeah, Gott and he'd be like, let's sing Lion King again. And then my mom was like, cool, I'm going to bed. Um. Yeah, I love this movie and and watching it back. What what is interesting to me now is like the production history of this movie, because it's like, I don't know, it is genuinely hard for me to get excited about these live action remakes just seeing them, but the production aspects and like the stuff that they're updating and the stuff they're not, and like that is interesting to me. So like finding out about the history of this a little bit was was cool. But man, Lion King Knight forms the world to me, I love it so much the same same. I was eight when it came out. I think I probably saw it in the theater, promptly got it on VHS, saw it probably eighty times throughout my childhood. Yeah, I love it a whole lot, but this is one of the ones that I haven't seen that recently. It's probably been a good ten or more years since I watched it. He was reminded when rewatching it. The Stampede sequence is so visually just cinematically incredible, like the music and the visuals and the animation and just the emotion and oh my, it's I'm gonna cry, but it's yeah, I'm so good. I mean we also just like the opening, and rewatching totally forgot. I was like, oh my god, nobody speaks for about four and a half to five in that first three minutes, like just literally setting a scene like Disney was like we in Africa, bitch, you know what I mean? Honestly, how much the Black panther take from Lion. We'll talk about that later, but but it was like like they just really take like hear all the animals, here are them coming across the plane to this big moment, you know what I mean. Like it just thought they took their time with setting the scene in a way that maybe now because we're so used to animated ship and everything is animated all the time now, that like you don't need to do that. But it just had the very like a there's a majestic quality, a grandeur to it that I felt they really leaned into. It's beautiful and it feels like one of those like a movie that takes a very young audience seriously and they're like, oh, kids will be able to handle this, because I feel like they're like, it's the animals. Kids like animals. But it is it's like this beautiful grand set up in the animation in this movie. For all of the criticisms I'm sure we all have, is so beautiful and like I get I cry at the beginning. I was crying the whole way through when I watched it by myself, I was it really I mean, it's a lot and like and the fact that This is like the the movie that basically a whole generation of kids learned about the concept of death from Whore, like learned how to rationalize it if they had already experienced it is like hoof, it's I can't I can't think about Mufasa without crying, Like Disney off up. It's like because they're always killing a parent, you know what I mean, It's like always like either if not usually the mom is already dead. That's either the background is a dead mom or the insding incident is a dead parent. But something about Mufassa and I was like, how dare this one? I can't allow? This is one I can't take the Shakespearean gravet talk. I mean, you know it's a lot, don't you love they did to They're like, yeah, why don't we just do like an African animal version of Hamlet? Like would that be a little bit? There's Oh, I can't wait to talk about the development of this movie because Disney is evil always and so they're they're just they love to steal and not give proper credit. But I mean it is like the elements of Hamlet that this movie uses. You're just like, why why did you do that, but it's so good. But then we get Rose and Cranson guilded Stern. The movie gets so silly in the middle for like twenty minutes, and you're just like, oh, this is great. We're like where all of a sudden, we're in the rainforest. We're a totally different climate. It's unclear how close the rainforest is to Pride, for you were joking it might be like mile away, because I think I was dead right. They think he did right. But then but then at the same time, not it got to him. So she was doing her regular hunting and came upon them that I don't know, well, I don't know, you know, I figure it out. Well, today that's what we're doing here. Today, we're figuring it out. Okay, So I'll do the recap of the film. Okay, So we are somewhere in Africa where exactly unclear the African part. We learn about the circle of life through a song and all the visuals that Nami was describing. We also learned about what do they call it when there's a king and a queen, a monarchy. We also learned about monarchy. We see a baby lion cub that has just been born and that's symbol RAFFII, who everyone thinks, including the movie, is a bad boon but is actually a man. Drill holds him up to the sky his baby Simba Cub and the light shines on r and his parents, Mufasa and Sarabi are so proud. Then we flashed forward to sometime later when Simba is a little bit older as a kid. Now he's Jonathan Taylor, Thomas Darling, Yes Darling, his uncle Scar, voiced by Jeremy Irons giving you high Camp. Oh my god, the met Gala. Jeremy Irons. We were talking about this where Caitlyn and I watched it last night and we were I wish that, like every animated project had like Bob's Burger's Rules, where everyone has to be in the room recording together at the same time, because I just want a video CEO of James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons yelling at each other. I don't want them in different rooms, right, I'm pawing at each other. So Uncle Scar is mean, he's jealous of Mufasa because Mufasa is king and Scar isn't. He's and yeah, Scars like he's he's slinkier. He's also darker, darker right on the lot of coding happening with Disney villains including Scar. Yes, we'll talk about that big queer coat in Comba to be for sure. So Mufasa tells his son's Simba that he's going to be king someday, and he tells Simba about their kingdom and he will rule everything but this shadowy area off in the distance. And then Simba finds out from Scar that that place is an elephant graveyard where the hyenas, where the hyenas live, and then Scar kind of subtly coaxes Simba to go there. So Simba sings a song about how he just can't wait to be kings. Yes, and that's not Jonathan Taylor Thomas singing, it's the older black. That's a black person. Don't get me started what they do in this movie. And then Simba and his best friend Nala go to the elephant graveyard, but they are chased by three hyenas, who we learned that Scar had sent to kill Simba. Mufassa shows up and saved them, and Foss is like, Simba, you freaking idiot, You put yourself in danger. You put Nala in danger. You do it at James Earl Drones voice starting with you freaking idiot, you freaking idiot. That's why he's the only original cast member back baby, when you got it, you got it? Yeah. Jerry Irons is twirling his mustache and fury somewhere. So Simba's all sad because he messed up to bed and now Scar has to figure out a new plan to get rid of Simba, and he sings what I think is the best song of the movie about being prepared to introduce the third Reich into his led to the community. Big Lenny Reef install vibes. Also, I'm sorry, way too long with a song, maybe because I don't like Scar. I was like, I think you can pull it back, sweetie. I just think it should go on longer. Oh my god, it should last the length of titanicly hours and fourteen minutes. Green Fog, I love it. So he decides to have the hyenas cause a will to Best stampede, which Simba gets trapped in the middle of and then Fossa has to go and save him, which he does, but then as mufass is trying to get back to safety, Scar sort of launches Mufassa back into the stampede and kills him, and then we all children learn that life is not fair. Yeah's the most sobering moment of your childhood is when Scar sinks his fucking claws and muf and he goes that key and you're like, Jerry ares no, he throws him off. It's and then the stampede moves on and Simba's looking all around and we we know what's happening, and but Simba's finds Mufassa and then he crawls under his big pack and we are crying. It's really sad, and the Scar comes up and he's like, Simba, if it weren't for you, your father still be alive. We learned about death and gaslight back to back a lot, and he's like he makes Simba think that Foster's death with Simba's fault, and he's like, your mom is going to hate you. Everyone hates you now, so you just should run away and never return. What do you think Simba's like eight Yeah, at this point he's like a decade and then he liked it becomes at eighteen year old. I think he comes back with big college freshman energy. He's like, I'm back. He's like coming back for thanksging like I'm a vegan. Now I've studied abroad. I took a soology and I feel ready to do because it's really eliminating. I was raised by my two gay uncles and now I'm very cultured. It literally came back after a semester at Oberlin, like he's back. So Simba does run away and he is found by Tomone and Pumba, a mere cat and a wart hot. Now it gets fun. It's fun, really silly for a while there's watching. It is kind of fun because it is. I didn't realize what a major relief it is. Went to Morrow and Pumba show up, but you're just like an emotional rack and then you're like, oh it's Nathan Lane. We're safe. Also Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick performing alongside each other in this and then later in the Producers, I will say I have my thoughts about Matthew Roderick in this role. I tell you right now, I'm excited. I'm not I'm not married to Matthew Roderick in this role at all. Yeah, I think it should have been Alfred Molina. They're right. There's a few vocal performances that I'm very attached to some studie I mean really yeah, like James Earl Jones and like Jeremy Irons, Black Nala serving Black Nala, the attitude, the spunk givermore dialogue was that when I got into JTJ. When I saw him love a black and looking back, I mean I did love him, and now I'm looking back, he was rough and tumble his sister and I am a little attached to Mr Bean as Zazu. But I think that John Oliver is a good stand in for Mr Bean basically our generations, Mr Bean, maybe we'll see what John oiveror does. John Oliver is goofy to me, but it still feels like a restrained goofy. No, it is an Areo died goof Do you see the goof I'm doing? Whereas I think we all know Mr Bean, I mean caution to the wind. Mr Bean has no self respect. He's he's chaos, really and the way and he and it comes out in Zaze. I think Zazo is his most restrained role that he's ever done. So I don't know, really funny, Okay, if you had to choose Disney Birds. Are we going with Yaga? Are we going with Zazo? I don't really don't. Boy is far too grating, and I'm the first one to say that you're welcome everybody. Caitlin coming through with hot taps, gilt voice, I'm tea Iago And now I'm wondering. I'm like, is that a Shakespearean reference to like they I don't know that, yeah, because they're yeah, They're like, we're actually a little better than your average cartoon, and I'm like, no, you're usually stealing from sall like it stuff you can steal, but it's like in the public domain, it's like stuff you can steal from anything that they would have to pay for it. Their like coincidence. Okay, tell us all the time. Okay, this is a classic family drama. It is not okay, so um Toman and Pumba tell Simba, hey, don't worry about your past. Tokuna matata means no worries. There's that greatest greatest song slash Montage Walk across the damn log Age ten years I'm brilliant. That makes me tear That made me. That makes me tear up a little bit too. Can. My don't know. I think it's because my mom is crazy, and she'd be like, that's wow, I feel about you that She's like, you're growing up so fast. So it's like the log, like, okay, my mom felt strongly about the log. We had a framed My mom was really into like putting framed Disney prints on credit cards, which would later prevent us to go from going to college. But she was really into purchasing framed Disney prints for a while, and we had a picture of the log in our house. Well, it's on that log that he turns into the carefree adult that is not concerned with his paths anymore, or at least not on a conscious level of compartmentalize. Oh yeah, he needs some serious therapy, that Simba. But he's an adult now. Then knowledge shows up and she's like, oh my god, Simba, you're alive. Holy sh it, you need to come back to Pride Rock because Scar the hyenas have taken over and they've ruined everything. She's like, Eve been gone ten years. It's Nazi Germany. Now there is no water, the e p A has been dismantled, and the environment has been Rock is flitt and we need you back, we need you back, not to keep poking the plot holes in there. But it's like prod Rock doesn't have water, weird to believe. It's sort of kind of nearby, and Simba's over here with a lake and it's so much grub, so much food. Yeah, yeah, confusing a lot of greenery. Maybe that's a weird scar roll of don't go to the very nearby lake, probably, And then Simba's like, I can't go back. My feelings hurt too much. But I don't know how to talk about that. I don't deserve to go back. I don't deserve to go like he's doing a lot of that. I don't think Broderick was too old for this. Sorry, I haven't even got still still like Broderick, you know, we want to think you so boyish, you know he had is that boyish? I think he rode that boyish wave well into his fifties, like and he's probably like thirty something, but it's like a little too I don't know. He is Steff White, you know. And when it comes to vocal again, you gotta be coming through irons camp drum off at all, and um, it felt like Matthew Broderick was like a little too uptight, you know, so it was white Notala. Yeah, for sure. I was like, okay both for y'all, y'all giving me something like weird like young and the restless multi kam moment, and what I need is I mean, it's the vocal fund of like Nathan Lane and um, I'm a blinking on Isabella, thank you or Isabella. And obviously different characters, like different types of characters, like obviously the word hog has got to come through with raspy, jovial nous but a little something the only seventeen eighteen, and it's like and especially adult, I mean not in jen neural, I mean the voice changes is infuriating. And and then also like she has so few lines at all that it's like, you know, you get to hire a local performer who can like deliver, like make a live deliver the seven lines you give her in the second damn meal of it. So Nala is trying to convince him to return. He's like no, but then Raffiki shows back up and imparts some wisdom about how Simba needs to face his past and how Mufassa is alive inside of him, and then ghost. Mufassa shows up in the sky and he's right, yeah, Kimba the wine line, oh gosh. So Simba is like, oh, ship, I should go back home. I'm on spring breaks. I'll go back. And then he returns to Pride Rock and Nala, Tomor and Pumba also follow him and scars like, oh, Simbody, you're alive. That's weird. And then Sarabi's like, oh my god, you're alive, Simba, and everyone you know has varying reactions to him being there. And then Simba challenges Scar in a I wrote down Game of Thrones? Ever heard of him? Scars like, oh, by the way, I'm the one who killed Mufasa, and Simba's like no, and then they fight and he throws Scar over a cliff and then the hyenas eat him. But no, but remember though, it's like literally first Simba comes back sensitive and scars like you killed your father? Tell everybody, and like you did, Simba, and then two seconds later scars like I killed your father. Simba pushes him back and it's like tell him what you child? Be just down my ear and he's like I killed him, and they're like scars like it's like literally how fast it And then and then like in the middle of that, Timon and Boomba show up and they're goofing up. You're just like, this is this is a mess. It's like a very messy high school fight of like tell them what you just said and then he's like I'm saying and then you're like oh, and then the two like clowns are over here, like I love when Tom was like, what do you want me getting dragon? Do? The hula cut to him and dragged during the hula and then back to the brutal Game of Thrones. That's also was like are you acon for some bacon? And then smash cut to Simba punching Scar in the face. It could be a big pig too, Okay, So then Scar has been defeated, and then we flashed forward to Pride Rock is nice again. The e p a has been reinstated, finally clean the water, yes, they remembered about the lake is like it's literally Nala knows where it is. I don't know. And Nala had gotten gregnant with a little baby lion cub who RAFFII lifts into the sky just Extemba had been in the beginning because it's the circle. And then we learned in the second one that it's his daughter Chiara. They never watched the sexte I've seen. I've seen the second one. It's it's that one's basically Romeo and Juliet. But yes, his daughter, Simba's daughter Chiara. Cute. We've got to go to a quick break, but then we will come right back. I mean, where to begin, Where to begin? What if we already started talking about that, we can just pick up on. We could talk about the Caucassity Present. Yes, let's do it, because it is funny, like watching it like as a kid, like to me it was black. I was like, oh, we did get our first princess. And I was like, oh, I know why I don't remember her because they made her Moirachill later on. But I just because I was like the voice of James Earl Jones, and just like it's just interesting, you know, because like this all I do, like talking white or talking black or sounding whatever. You know, there's by no means a hard and fast rule. You know. I definitely grew up being told I talked white for forever, and now most of my stand up is just fucking tackling back and forth between voices for the fun of it and like code switching whenever I need to. But it is just interesting how this was. This was a movie to me where it was like, oh, that's a black person, that's a white person, and like knowing that in my ear even as a little kid, you know what I mean. I just very interested in the whole Like why would they not cast a black actress to be Nala, Because I will say, sir, Robbie is coming through with this regal realness in her cocoa vocals. Give me another black woman. Madge Sinclair is the voice actor. The voice of Robbie unfortunately also has seven lines total, but but makes a meal of it. She's giving you something, you know what I mean, a little something, And I just thought that was like very um, I don't know, just interesting some of those choices, you know what I mean, you need to mean Jeremy Iron's perfection, Sure o Thomas. What other star of that time would do it? But it was just so funny how I was like, yeah, that's out the deal of Thomas And when he's singing, is Michael Jackson, you know, not literally Michael Howe would just be that sound and you're just like like, um, I think we know what happened here. It was just so interesting. Yeah, the voice of young Simba Jason Weaver who I remembered as the older brother and smartt that's the singing voice. Singing voice. Yeah, and then so yeah, white actor for the speaking voice, black actor for the singing voice. Shouldn't they have just cast black voice actors for every role in this movie? Well, I know, right, that's kind of I know. But at the same time, right there animals and so who are we to ascribe race to animals? But when you start with James Earl Jones, everybody else gotta brasiddication. That's the tricky Like that's a tricky thing, you know what I mean, Like he's like the patriarch, right, and he's giving you that gravitas, right, Because it's kind of split down the middle in terms of casting where you've got voice actors who are people of color. We've got Mufasa Sarabi, Young Nala, Raffii, Shenzi and Bondsy. So you've got like James Old Jones, mag Sinclair what was the name, Robert Yeah, you know, Whoopi Goldberg and teach Marin as to the hyenas, and then Nikita Colamba Harris is young Nala, and then the white voice actors young Simba. J. T. T. We've got adult Simba, Matthew Broderick, We've got adult Nala. What's her name? Moira Kelly, Kelly Scars, Jeremy Irons as we've discussed Zazoo as Rowan Atkinson, Timon and Pumba are Nathan Lane and the name that I also forget, Yeah, and then Jim Jim Cummings is ed the the other the laughing ist Tyina. Let's yes, the laughingest Hyena. Part of the issue with this movie and with most Disney movies that are trying to portray another culture, even if it even if the intentions are earnest, is everyone in a major production role in this movie is a white person, and so it's like it doesn't seem like anyone was considering it. Yeah, because to me, also, I look, it is animation, you know what I mean? And I one of the things I love and keep trying to break my ass in a voiceover is because I don't have to deal with the same assumptions of what I am allowed to play because of my face. So I don't honestarily for me, it's like, no, you can, you could give me, you know, some cross cultural moments. I just an issue with the switching of vocals from people in both like the and that that's a different there's a different sup between Like obviously Matthew Broderick isn't singing his parts. That's apparently the lead singer of Toto. I think who's it's also John Williams's son. Oh wait, wouldn't be funny though if it was, and that's what inspired him to sing Africa. Joseph, No it is, he's uh yeah, Joseph Stanley Williams fronted fronted for the lead of the rock band Toto and son of John LANs son of John Williams, who knew wild connection. But so I get, like, you know, the actor can't sing necessarily, but it's just like so jarring to go from like scooky down on the Taylor Thomas to like motown moments. It's just it's just such a shift. And the thing I've never really understood now maybe more than ever, it's about famous people and certainly if you're doing with live action thing. But to me, the whole point of voice office, like let the voice actors get a job I don't need. It's like here Fred Savage to talk about Nissan and ship. It's like, han't you got some money? What you're taking all this stuff? But we don't like the fact you need that star power for like even a cartoon. I say, you get like a couple of recognizable names, maybe for like the poster or whatever. But it's like maybe the girl who was young, Nala was too young to age up, but then you just find like an older like an adult. There were were plenty to choose from, and you could just like you just knew, I'm not gonna a little black girl having fun, like you know that voice and then you and then you like, like what do you do with it? Just it just seems like no thought was given to it, and it's it's frustrating. Luckily, the live action remake seems to, of course corrected a lot of this. Yes, but if you look at the production team, it is still a majority white production team, white director, white like it. It's that's the thing that frustrates me about a lot of like it's it is like progress, but if you like behind the camera representation is still so low and you don't see it, and so no one really well of course, and then also every if you notice too, the black people in the movie are the super blacks. Not an actual phrase, of course, but this idea usually that like because you notice a lot like people will allow a black musician who has reached a stain level of fame. It's a cross over into acting because like, Okay, I already know that black person, so you can put them over here. But it's harder for anybody just kind of crop up out of nowhere, you know what I mean, Like it's Beyonce come town, you know what I mean. It's like you picked the best black woman around right now. Donald Glover were also like a multi hyphen like if they were gonna put black people and it had to be the like big splashy names and not that obviously like they'll be good. I'm not saying any of these people lack the ability to do this work, but it is still that feeling that like you're not giving like a newer performer a chance, or just like you're nothing else onde the box. You're like like it was just kind of like who's the biggest black person we can get for this thing. Yeah, okay, can we get her? Can we get her? Okay? Good, Okay, now we're done. Okay, now we're done. Okay, now Beyonce, just Beyonce into the microphone, into the microphone, will hit record and then and then it's like you can have Jon Favreau directed and people aren't gonna like raise in that Like that. It really does bother me when when it's there's like a lot of effort put into representation in one area specifically, and then the rest is sort of like, well, we can keep status over here, and that's true and innim I mean that's true in a lot of animation like It's and which is white boys hadded but it's more white boys stealing ideas. Uh yeah, do you want to talk about that? Yes, I have been. I so this is like I vaguely knew about this, but then I did a deep dive on it. There's a YouTube channel I watch called yester World. It is very long video essays about Disney theme topics and I am ashamed. Uh, but he does great work. Anyways. They're basically like short docs. But the Lion King part of it's like claim to fame is being Disney's first quote unquote original story that isn't a direct adaptation of something else. So they're like, there's elements of Moses and Joseph, there's elements of Hamlet, but it's an original story. It's our first, like the first Disney Renaissance movie that isn't a direct like old European story being adapted, right, and that doesn't seem necessarily true. It bears a lot of resemblance to an anime series that started as a comic book series called kim Both The White Lion in Japan by a very famous Japanese um animator named Osamu Tezuka, and I'm not or Tessuka. It's it's the most frustrating story in the world to unpack because it's just like peak Disney, where it's like, if you can admit that you were taking elements from this story and pay the people who created it, no harm, no foul, all good because Tessuka's whole um. He's a like super famous Japanese animator. He invented Astro Boy and kim but with the White Lion, like two huge Kimba Kimba sim you know, exactly like Simbod and Tessuka idolized Disney was constantly citing Bambi as the reason that he wanted to become an animator. Like got to meet Disney once and was it just was like very effusive about how there is and but I mean it's I mean, I don't know what they're they're lationship was, but uh, you know, Disney is not a good person. But Tessiga makes Kimba the White Lion. It is a big deal in Japan. His name is Leo the Lion in Japan, but it's not in America because the MGM Lion's name is Leo, so they changed it to Kimba. So he's known as Kimba the White Lion in America. Some people like, it's not a super popular thing in America, but it is popular enough coming out. Uh. The good question is the sixties. The sixties is when the character was invented, or the fifties was comic books and then there were movies in the sixties. Yeah, he was like a well established Yeah, it's been a long time, right, And so there is a lot of speculation that is well founded that the Lion King rips off a lot of elements of Kimba the White Lion. Most of them are visual, but basically the the issue with it is that here's this famous Japanese animator who absolutely loved Disney. His company was willing to play ball and like lend the rights because they're like, oh, you know, and he he passed away by the time this movie came out, but he's like, oh, Tessica would have loved that Disney wanted to use his characters. But Disney firmly denied that what they had done had anything to do with Kimba the Lion. There, Lion Simba had nothing to do with Kimba. There's a number of like things you can watch online of side by side shots. The fight between Scar and Simba is identical. The dead Dad in the sky scene is identical. The stampede with the bird hovering above saying don't worry help is coming as identical. Like visually. In addition to story beats, the dead Father beat us there, the stories aren't exactly one for one the same. There's literally a farting ward hog in Kimba the way. It's ridiculous it is, and Disney already has such a horrible history of stealing from other cultures and never crediting and being like, idea, we did it. And this is like a particularly agregious because when the movie came out, Tessica's company was like, hey, this bears a lot of resemblance to our I P. We weren't paid for it, but Tessica would have liked that, Like, they were still really nice about it. And Disney responded by issuing a cease and desist to the company and saying like, keep our name out of your mouth, has nothing to do with what you did, and funk off. So it's Disney. Are we surprised? They're like trying to start a empire. No one will be allowed to watch anything that does not have their logo on it, and they're evil like there and a lot of animators anonymously came forward because the wrath of Disney, you can't A lot of animators and honestly came forward and we're like, no, we definitely knew about Kimba the White Line. It was talked about in meetings all the time. The Lion King started as a Kimba project, but then Tessica passed away and we had already started concept arts, so we sort of just kept a lot of it and like it's well document. Matthew Broderick has said in interviews that he was telling everyone he was going to be the voice of Kimba because he was familiar with Kimba, and he was told he was going to be the voice of Kimba, and they're like, actually it's Simba. Never mentioned Tessica again, and and Disney still to this day has not copped to it. But they've basically stole a lot of visual inspiration and like story beats. In addition to the Hamlet stuff that they will admit to, they stole a lot from this very famous Japanese animator. Disney is scar Basically Disney is a gas lighting liar, but also not even good at their treachery, you know what I mean, Like they have power, but like they don't. They're not, Like you couldn't even make that ship and not look alike. You just listed six direct scenes. You change that one letter because that was the thing was Scar too. It was like, okay, bitch, you gas lit a child. Yeah, you ain't that clever, And then you got in charge and then nobody had water. You ain't even going to be in charge. Why did you want to be in charge so you're just sitting okay? Put a bird in a rib cage? Why did you want to be in charge so bad? You're not good at any of the things. He couldn't even keep the secret up. I killed your father, wait till he's dead. But he was like got a whisper in his here. It's like like Disney is like not even good if faked ship feeling ship. There's also hyenas and a raffiki character in Kimba. It's this, Okay. The one thing that this just makes me laugh. The one thing that was included in Kimba the White Lion that it is actually very good that Disney did not steal because it's scary, is Kimba the White Lions. Dad also dies in the movie, but instead of really devastating under the policyne what Kimba the White Lion does is keeps his dad's high and uses it as a disguise, and multiple points, girl does not let other people know that the king is dead. He just sneaks under his dad's corpse and hiss hello everybody, Buffalo bills his father. So um. Those are fun scenes to watch on YouTube too, because you're like, yaikes, this is very dark. Um okay, so that's my that's my tiree. Thank you for sharing all that. We've got to take another quick break, but then we'll come right back for more discussion. Alright, So we've covered the you know, intellectual property theft from Disney, We've covered the upsetting casting choices. Let's talk about the female characters. Yeah, but it's like they haven't come up yet with good reasons, with the reason because they are nearly inconsequential to the story. Did you my nations count how many lines they have? Because I literally feel like it has to be between the does what we have a gender as a hyena? Because I didn't think we ever like here? So like, so I'm not counting whoopee. So I'm literally just counting Nala and Sarabi, right, Okay, I swear to you they must say less than twenty lines between the two of them home moving, Oh ease. I didn't think that that is like generous, most especially because most of Nala's interaction is in a music montage where she sucks and she doesn't speak. It's just that we're just like hearing like her internal monologue and so You're just like it's like, why can't he be the king I want him to be? And then she's like I'm ready and it was just like it was just like what because I loved because initially I was like oh, I was like I forgot where it's like, you're going to be married and she's like, oh gross, and I was like, okay, I'm into romance. Subplot is Zazu being like, yeah, you guys are betrothed and they're like what the fund does that mean? And he's like, you're going to be married and they're like gross. We're friends. And then and then Simba disappears from her for a decade thought he was dead. She thought he was. But I do think it is important that, like her life is more defined by him than his, his life is defined by her because seeing him again means the world to her because he equals no more Nazis, in addition to fucking the hope for her future hinges on this boy yeah, whereas he's just like oh' sup, Like he's like, I got so good to see you. What are you even up to? I thought you were dead. It's like if I ran into my neighbor Brendan O'Connell always have a crush on and like, oh my god, Brendan, this horrible guy name him Trump is in office and you have to get him out. And he's like, what's up right now? Insects for the best and pig how do you get so jacked eating grabs? He's got a full body, he's he's dined on vick, He's he's swollen. I'm interested in teen Simba. We only see him on the log but for a moment, but he has a mohawks. I'm like, that is styled his rebellious face. And that was it. But then here's a question, due, did you do you feel like Simon and Pumba were his parents? I feel like at best they were like big brothers, Like I don't think anyone was like raising him or teaching I felt uncle vibes from them. I always felt like an uncle vibe of like, yeah, you're taken care of there. They're technically like your caretakers, but they're not like making sure you're learning things, like they're not teaching you much like literally, their whole life philosophy is don't care. So what really can they be teaching him? And yet in the montage. He learns everything he needs to know about life and is ready to go back resumed. It is. And then we learned in that and I never that's never really registered for me. But in that scene where they're all looking at the stars to mon Pumba and Simba, you learned that Simba has never told them anything about his background. Um he so they know very little about him there. They've just kind of been feeding and bugs. Maybe they're I'm like, I want to know what they're Well, you have to see Lion King one and a half, which is a class one and a half. Lion King one and a half is I think of the two directed video Lion Kings No Superior. It's just literally what Timon and Pumba were doing during all the parts of the Lion King that they're not in. It's really funny. It's like and it's Nathan Lane and Ernie's about like Matthew Roject. The whole cast came back for this two thousand four directed video. It's really good. I haven't seen that one either. It's classic. That's amazing. Yeah, and like that they called it half yeah. Interesting. I thought it was gonna be like a twenty minute video like a twenty minute clip half for some reason, for some reason, they made it a feature. I'm I kind of missed direct to video. I guess like there are some Netflix projects that are comparable to direct to video ship to where you're just like, what is who is this for? It's like it's much work for who? But I love that stuff. Uh So anyway, So we've got Simba, who is like emotionally repressed. We've got Nala coming back. Here's Here's what really draws me nuts about this storyline is that Nala comes back and she's like, Simba, you've been gone all this time. Our homeland has been deteriorating. We're living under this Nazi regime. Please come back and help us. We're our only hope. And he's just like, no thanks. And then a male character shows up, Raffii, and he's like, hey, Simba, you should really like look inside yourself and then consider going back. And he's like, you're right. A man told me I should do that, So I'm going wait, but the man showed him his daddy and the sky magic Man. Yeah, I feel like riffy and he does no Raffii, RAFFICI did the whole hold him on the rock. He doesn't remember that. I don't think he knows Raffici actually when he shows back up right because he's like I knew your father, right, because he's like, who are you and he's like, my father's dead, sorry to break it to you, dude, Like so he doesn't recognize him at all. I know what you mean though, But I think it's also like I could have used a scene of all the lady lions like trying to overthrow scar in some capacity and failing, you know what I mean, Like just a pop of what was going on back home, how they tried to fight back and couldn't do it, you know what I mean. I think that that would like help just logistically help offset some of the tone stuff too, because you don't know what's going on until you're seeing Dystopia right before Simba gets back, and it would be and it's like you get that one shot of Sarabi like holding her head high as she's like walking through this like Hyena held then, and you can sort of like you get an idea of like she's been through a lot, she's like retaining her dignity through this, but this isn't But it's like, yeah, you could use especially because we see Nala's mom for one line, or she's cleaning her child exactly licking your child's ass, and that's literally always her. Yeah, that would that would have been good for everyone too, because it's because you are sort of like, how did Scar pull this off? He's so out Well that brings me to some some science facts what I have, So we yes, we talked to Katie Golden. She is the host of Creature Feature podcast right here on the network, and she knows a lot about animals, and she told us a thing or two about how lind behavior actually works in nature versus how it's depicted in The Lion King. So she says, female lions make up the core of a pride, which we see in the movie um Males come and go. Prides are often thought to only contain one male and like a harem of females, but that's not always totally accurate. Only Tsavo lion prides contain a single male adult. Most other subspecies of lions have prides in which they're up to four males, typically brothers, and typically one dominant male is allowed to mate with several females and then they all produce cubs. So in the lion king Nala and Simple would be related because the fossa would be both of their dads. Because we see only one. We see my fassa and then we see Scar, who we assume isn't he's an in cell. He's not getting sucked. I was, yes, major in cell, like he lives in a basement. Literally yeah. But then all the other adult lions are females, so everyone Fassa is fucking. So that now that's sexy time and jule um in In real life and nature, this kind of inbreeding is usually avoided by dispersal, so the male lions will move away from the pride that they were born in and seek a new pride or a new territory um, so Simba returning to Pride Rock wouldn't have happened. In nature, the dominant alpha male in a pride will eventually be ousted by a younger, fitter male or several males, a swoller male linum, who will take a tenure at the pride. So the son of like the alpha male line would not be the one to take over. He would instead go off and find his own pride. So that's I couldn't even go to someone's table at lunch, just literally can I be part of your prod? Confidence? Yeah, the confidence it takes to just be like, hey, can I join your pride? Also, I'm in charge, so I'm the leader big all about even that move? Um. So in urns of female and male lions, it's hard to say kind of who's in charge, as both females and males have specific roles in their community. Because females rear the cubs, they do the majority of hunting UM and they help enforce the social structure, while males defend their territory from other males. They assist in hunting a little bit, and they are usually either ousted or they dispersed to other prides UM. But typically prides or thought of as a matriarchal society UM because the permanent social structure is maintained by the females, whereas the presence of anyone individual male is generally temporary. This is what we were just talking about in the narrative. Females in nature in real life will gang up on an intruder male who attempts to take control of a pride. So if Scar tried to take control of the mating or in this movie he tries to become king, what he would do try to kill all the existing cubs, So the females would try to prevent this by fighting him off, and because Scars superscrawny, they probably would have won and killed him because like, what does Scar have? He just has some hyenas and is it just I can't remember he has? Obviously the three main was in there. There more than that, but I was like a whole army. The whole army was like but in actual nature, the lions wouldn't be afraid of a hyena. Well, he's some and some more facts coming through everyone listened to creature feature hyenas would never work with lions. She whist lions eat hyena cubs and steal their kills, while sometimes hyenas will steal a lion kill. But hyenas are also matriarchal and they're actually more nepotistic than lions. So in the Lion King, if Mufasa, Simba and Scar were female hyenas, this would all actually become more accurate narratively. I sort of don't understand what I just read, but maybe I trust him. I trust right, Okay, so some mistakes were made to avoid scenes with too many women in them right there. I mean, yeah, that would be such a that would be such a better scene, and just to get to know a female character well enough. But again, it's just like, if you look at the lineup of people who made this movie, it totally tracts that they would have no concern about, Like why isn't Naled doing more? Does Nala do anything that has consequence besides get pregnant? Right because she has the agency and she's active enough to go looking for help, and in so doing she finds Simba, yes, but her attempt to convince him to return doesn't work. And it's not until RAFFII is like, hey, you better go back that Simba's like okay, so she could have never showed up, and it really would have made a difference. Well if you even go back when when they were kids. Nala is following Simba to go to the eleven Graveyard. It's not her idea. She doesn't have a lot of agency there, and then she just sort of is like hanging out. Well, Simba's being a fucking brat and she's like, I'm gonna own everything and she's so entitled as a kid, god fucking like rich kids in their entitlement a night. But she is able to every time they kind of like play fight. She always pins him so strong and she's a good hunter. But then she does it later and it's horny and yeah, and that's how he knows that, Oh you're you're Nala, the girl who always used to pin me because it was but also my grandfather. She like licks his face a little, yeah, you're like first she surprised kiss him though I don't know, I know lins how the lines consent. We don't know. Um, I'm considering he had never interacted with a female lion in like a decade, you know what I mean. He was really like he was like very stunned. But it would have been a great great to see like a scene with like Nala and Sarabbi like teaming up to try to be like let's overthrow scar, like let's do something, or even a conversation about again like the death of her husband and son went through a lot, right, lots over that. Yeah, and like even when Simba comes again, it only last two seconds, but when she thinks, you know, when scars like he's the reason why MUFAs is dead, she said she does Simba, or like, is that true? You know she has that, But I'm like, we should have had Sir Robbie Faine at some point fall out and get it back together. She should have been the one to find him in the damn jungle where she was like, I've left, I have nothing to live for and have been on a walk about. Or it's like we see the scene where like Scar comes back after just having gas lit, Simba been like, hey, Sarabi, MUFAs is dead. Simba's dead. Sorry, And then and then we can see the aftermath of like Sarabi and then like Nala finding out that her best friend is presumably dead, and then like them trying to cope with that grief and exactly and like we're just like, what is it like? Because you say it's like you see for I can see like Pride Rock is like black, correct, it's already desert, So you're like, well, but then you see it looking worse. But to see a moment, well, what does life look like for the rest of the Pride But what is actually going on down below? Are they doing like a pussy march, like a pussy hat march like a women's march, and they're like what are they doing? And especially like I don't know, that's what I'm just kinda like wait, what what's going on with them? And we can see that there's a lot of like lioness like when you see that shot of Scar being in terging, like there there's there are enough women to stage in uprising him. Oh god, but women to stage and uprising. I'm actually because the the in real life female lions are the more proficient hunters, which at least was Nala at one point, but like you would think they would have been able to like take out Scar and probably most of the hyenas, like they would have been able to rip them going to Kenya to get the answers if you're not going to use them, right Disney, Disney producers and writers failure A vision failure a vision there. This is like literally if we were like waiting around to be rescued by an eighteen year old boy, like it just doesn't make any logical sense. Could we could just take someone down ourselves? Yeah? I did. It's just busy laughing at fart there, But yeah, I mean, like the really the only two female characters we get here they exist in relation to the men around them pretty explicit. And the fact that Simba Nala start out as friends, it would have been nice to see them just stay as friends. The fact that like they wedge a romantic storyline in there doesn't need to happen. Yeah, I feel like it could have. Just she could have been used as like the moment of like the friend that finally gets him to admit, like him thinking he killed his dad, and then Nolle could have been the one to be like Scar was lying to you, right, don't mean make no sense simbo. Yeah, looking back, I'll go back again. A black woman as grown has knowledge like simple get it again? Right? Yeah? But yeah, nothing nothing really adds up, simply does not. And so I'm curious if any of this will sort of be kind of course corrected in this remake, because Disney seems to be attempting to do this with these live action remakes, for example, not to back, but I did see a Laddin twenty nineteen in the theater. Okay, I hope you can get it as a text right off. Oh yes, I'll be writing that. I use my AMC list stubs and it was actually yeah, wow, okay, well somebody she just gotta upgrade anyway, Um, are you telling me about that movie? Upgrade? You like the Beyonce song who plays Nala? Go ahead? And then you're trying to tell So in this live action Aladdin, there seems to be an attempt to make Jasmine a more meaningful and flashed out character. She's given like political aspirations that she does not have in the animated film from ninety two. She's also given a couple of extra songs, so we learned a little bit more about her character and her perspective. So there's an attempt to flesh out female characters more. It's seen there's still lions in this Yeah, so what are they going to do? You know what I mean? Like you can use that as a cover, right, I mean, but there's but they're anthropomorphized as people basically, So I don't think that's any excuse. I think they can still like give female characters agency. We can learn more about their personalities, their backstories, like all that stuff. I get. Yeah, I mean that's like the test, Like that's the only thing that most of the only value I see in these cash grab movies is like can you improve upon the material by adapting it well? And like can you you know, like make the like diverse choices you should have in the first movie. Can you like fix shady character ship or like confusing like why is this person motivated? Why don't we see this female character for an hour? Like stuff like that, Like you could have that scene with Sarabi and Nala's mom and all the lionesses in the new one, and that would be like a cool adaptation change. What's Seth Rogan playing? He's I object, yes, yeah, yeah, Okay, So we've got we've got some updates including Amy said there's plays a character whose name is Elephant. True. We seem to have added a few what I'm guessing your male characters. Who's like Eric Andre plays a character named a Zz who I don't know. What I think is they changed the names of the hyenas. That was well because shen Z is the is WHOOPI Goldbrook's character in the animated one and that remains, But I don't see I think his name is like Bonzai in the animated one, So maybe that's oh, oh yeah, who just keep playing? Oh no, he plays Kamari, who's that it's kari okay, It's a whole new world compare another out of transitation change that it is rumored the movie is making, and I think transitions well into Another thing we need to talk about is the song be Prepared is allegedly not going to be in the new movie. Um it is like the one major song from the original that as far as I can find, has been cut, the best song, the one you want to last three hours, I'm so sorry, and there's and I think that like that is a very interesting like of this moment kind of choice to make. There's a slight article written by Aisha Harris about this creative decision. It was written last year, so it's possible that maybe they just didn't announce it, but they released the track list really early and be Prepared is not on there. And it is interesting because that scene, there's a bunch of whatever. You can go into the clickbait universe and find the side by side comparisons of like Lenny Reefinstahl movies of Nazi soldiers and a lot of the shots are very deliberately identical, and the hyenas marching and you know, the whole bit, like it is pulled directly from this like very famous German World War two propaganda movie, which I guess was a creative decision that wasn't very controversial. But now that and and and Aisha Harris argues in this article and she thinks it's a bad choice to cut this number and kind of Disney hedging their beds now route. We might as well give him a number. But she she kind of makes the argument, and I agree with what she's saying is that Disney is so like wanting to please everyone that in saying like Nazis are bad was not as hot a take as it is in fucking two thousand and nineteen, and so that that is most likely the reason why the song was cut. The reason that they gave was like that the I don't know the name of the actor who's playing scar now Nazis ang will come to see some black people signs in Africa anyway, I don't know. I think I'll mispronounce it, but she would tell. So the argument used was that he's not a singer by trade, and Jeremy Irons was a singer, so they can't have it. But clearly Disney pulls the ship all the like if the actor can't sing, you hire another actor. But they cut this, they cut the song, and yeah, I think that that's kind of a first of all, my one of my favorite songs in the movie. But also it's just like if a Disney movie can give some anti Nazi messaging, now I would be a great time, very appropriate. But uh yeah, speaking of Scar, should we talk about the queer coding of this and all Disney vieling. I was gonna say, do you know that James Admian bit James and he talks um he has a had a very wonderful bit a few years back, but I think it might still be in rotation about yeah pretty much. I mean what you're gonna say that, like all Disney villains are gay? Yes, it's yeah, every Well, we'll link that in the description because it's like one of my favorite the dummy bits. Ever. Yes, I mean, Scar is one of the more notorious queer coded villains where, of course, you know coding, it's never explicitly stated, but through the way the characters speaks, moves, etcetera. Other coded queer Disney villains include Ursula uh and include whor else who else? We got again again from the villain from great Mouth, Detective the Governor Radcliffe from Contest. There's I mean, most Disney Renaissance movies follow this exact formula and have a queer coded villain, which you know, it's like it conflates queerness with evil. There's a lot of reclaiming that the queer community has done of the Disney villains. And if you go to like they have Disney villain Knights at Disneyland. And I had a friend in Boston who would travel in a pack of ten gay men would fly to Florida to go to Disney viland like, there's a lot of reclaim this's taken place, but it is, I mean, it's it's, you know, a mostly straight group of writers, creators, animators um demonizing queer people. And since these movies are intended for children, children get the wrong messages about queer people. Even if they don't realize what's happening, their brains are interpreting. We talked about this a lot on the Aladdin episode, so I recommend revisiting that if she wants more. And then another thing that this and other Disney movies do is that they the way they're designed is that they tend to be darker, where all the lions except for Scar are like beige, yellowy tan, right, and then Scar has much darker for a much darker main. This also happens again with Radigan, which I think, honestly, Great Mouth Detective might be my favorite Disney movie. And it also happens with Ursela. It was Ursula. She's purple and everyone else is white, and canonically, like, they don't do that, they don't funk with this in the in the Disney movie, but canonically she's supposed to be King Triton's sister. Yeah maybe half sister, yeah, but either way, like that is fully at play in that movie as well. Yeah, so's it's all black. She's rotund, which is supposed to be bad, you know what I mean? Like everything, right. The the the heroes in Disney movies are animated and designed to be traditionally attractive by Western beauty standards. They're they're thin, they're white or light skinned or furred. Uh. They are young and pretty and all this stuff, and and straight. While the villains, especially from this kind of specific era and then even before that, were made to look darker. They were queer coded, they had different body shapes. And sizes and just yeah, all just demonizing anything that isn't uh and and again this is like because there has been a process of reclaiming these characters over time. It is like a complicated issue too. There is another piece that I read in uh Into that argues, because it does seem like an adaptation choice, is that they're doing away with the queer coding for Scar and this this author argues that that is sort of erasure of the only visibly queer character in the movie, and they're making him a straight villain, which means that there's no queer characters. And it's I mean, it's Scott doesn't have sexuality, but to have him not play those stereotypes in a nefarious way, right, Like, that's good to do, you know what I mean? Right, I think there should be representation of queer characters, certainly in Disney and all movies. Every movie should be more queer. But again, so I'm saying, like an adaptation, you can find another character to have some visibility to It doesn't even have to be Scar. But right, it's almost like whenever Disney tries to do it, it's so corny and disingenuous, Like with fucking Lafu and Beauty and the Beast where he's seen like dancing with another man and like we did it. We did it Visibility win and it's just like make yeah, make like tomone have a mere cat husband, right, and then like them be like actually happy together to be married. Some interspecies they are like literally life partners. We put them in Boa together. They've got they've got a condo. They're common law obviously, like a mere cat and a word hog aren't. Just like they didn't just fall together, they found each other. Yeah, you know what. I think it's explained in Lion King one how they first met and fell in UM. But yeah, I mean the queer coding debate is complicated when and I mean I don't envy the writer who's in the position of deciding what stays and what goes UM, But there it is. Scar is a heavily queer coded villain for sure. Is there anything else anyone wants to talk about? I think that the last thing I had was the Elton John of it all. I was gonna ask you that when we're talking about these kind of queerness and characters, and you know, of course, to me, I can't even think about Lin King now without thinking about the Broadway show, right, you know, and that being so linked. So please Jamie, what I'm saying is I'm ready. Oh I well, I just went into I guess get everyone's opinions because I don't even know how I mean, I know how I feel generally, But this so the Elton John being the composer and then Tim Rice does the lyrics. Um, Elton John is a queer artist, but they're both white guys who who do and and there's you know, well documented like they did a lot of research into African music, they hired some African musicians to sing, but they still are the people getting the main credits and getting the oscars and getting the majority for paying tribute to a lot of the musical tradition. But it's still ultimately two white guys who are getting the credit for it. I don't know, Gland, know what I mean? We could have just put Graceland underlying King and it would have totally worked. Well, white people like working with other white people, do you know what I mean? Like, just't gonna like who's who's someone we know? Okay, I don't want to feel uncomfortable today. I don't want to have to worry about saying the wrong word. Just gonna be a white person and John some one where I don't, I don't. I just don't want to be scared, you know what I mean. You're like, I don't want to have to engage in whatever it could possibly be, you know what I mean, like whatever it could possibly be, which is who knows. But I mean he's he's a brilliant musician too, though he's I mean, I saw a rocket Man, okay, off another racket to see it. But I don't like biopics. Really, I'm a Terran Edgerton stand though I like him. I think he's like a cutie patuity. Only I did see all both Kingman, if only for Taran Edgerton's thighs. You gotta see rocket Man? Are they on display the whole time? Like he's wearing He's wearing shorts for a lot of the movie. And you're just like, like, I just I just want to be closer to them, I say, al right, So can you feel the love tonight? Great song, very sexy. Timon and Pumba's parts of that song are basically about how a man entering into a relationship with a woman will ruin your life because women are the old ball and chain, like they're just like your care free bachelor life is going to be fucked up if you go off with Nala. The lyrics the song closes with in short, I'm not gonna say is due and then they burst into tears. So the thought of like their single male line friend like getting a girlfriend ruins them. I love it, but also you have to realize it. It's been a decade of a co dependent dynamic, right, It's really been just the three of them hunting up grubs. And you're like, yeah, I get why this is hard for you both. Sure you know what, they haven't made a friend. I really don't, Simba. I almost view of them as empty nesters. In that song or there, it's like when you're when if your parents are still somehow together when you when you leave the nest, right, and they're like, oh now we have to just like talk to each other again. So if your parents are still somehow together when you leave the nest, it was like personal backstory, let's unpack that. Um. But yeah, just like they're they're gonna just hang out together again. They're so quick to go back to like put themselves in a harm's way when they're like, no, the third Friend, Well, of course they want to go to Pride Rock because of their queer pride. It's all symbolism, symbolism, title leaving. I'm honestly excited to see the new movie. I am so like whatever on reboot culture, but I am excited to see it. I don't really need to see Lions. If they only made it with people, i'd be interested. But for some reason, I'm not here for like, like I saw the animatronic Lion and it was like like movies where it's like cool technology. Yeah, I don't feel like that's like that for me does not draw me into a movie. Usually, well what originally maybe when it looked like it may be a Shot for Shot remake, I was fully out, but like, at least they're making some changes. It's because I'm more attached to Lion King than any of the rereleases that have come out so far. But Myles was showing me upstairs some of the early like Beyonce as adult Nala and it looks like a YouTube dub of like c g I Lions with a celebrity, Like that's like what I'm not getting. Yeah, that's what I mean. And then like again, the things we can do, Like what I love about old Disney is that like people drew that ship. Yeah, now it's like you got ten computer programs. You know. Obviously I know there's some computer involved, especially in the stand Pete scene and some bigger scenes. You guys do not come for me. I see it. It was all fucking hey and drawn. But what I am saying is you see the artist handed world and you can like see like it's just even like in just there's no Uncanny Valley and like the expressions that the animals have where I'm worried that it will be Uncanny Valley City with this new Lion King. I mean, I don't know. I want it to be good. The only person I feel should be able to direct motion capture movies is Andy Serkis. And if you I am a big Andy Serkis stan if you haven't seen his Jungle Book movie that's on Netflix because it got pushed to Netflix because Disney pushed up the release of their shittier Lion King during bro and fabs. So you know, Andy Serkis, he's got m he understands mo cap and you can make it look amazing. H he is the entire planet of the apes. They it's just like, let him handle this and let's just let's move on. Also, this Lion King remake is a half hour longer than so to everyone. I feel like the big the more money they's in the movie, the longer they think it needs to be right, you know what I mean. Don't make a kids movie two hours long. I was watching it, I was like, oh, it's like an hour twenty nine minutes or something. The original and perfect. There it is, And even then I felt the first thirty bit is supposed to be blug. I will last thing I'll say is that Poomba, when they're all talking about what they think stars are, Pumba says that he thinks they are giant balls of gas burning billions of miles away. Pumba is a wart hog in Stem. He knows, he knows. Okay, does this movie pass the Bechtel test. There is a very quick exchange in the very beginning where there is Nala's mom, so she's she's credit with the name, but we don't know it. But Simpa's like, hey, Nala, let's go to the watering hole, and then Nala's mom's like, all right, I'll let you go. What do you think, Sarabi? And then Sarabi says something like yeah, I guess it's okay. But yeah, we never learned Nala's mom's name. And also the context of the conversation is can Nala go with a boy with a watering hole? And they line and they're going to the elephant graveyard? Yeah, so I think Sep does. Yeah, there so should have been a scene between like either young Nala and Sarabi, like after they learn about Mafassa and Simba's death, and or Nala as an adult with Sarabi talking about like, hey, let's kill Scar. We can do that. I'm gonna go try to find help. Here's my plan for us. Yeah. If you don't hear from me in two sundowns, I'm dead. So yeah, that's a no on the Bactel test. Yeah, let's reade the movie Zero to five Nipples based on its portrayal of women. Yikes, gang, it's not too good. Sorry to say. The women are strong, yes, so they don't do much with that strength. They don't. Yeah, they don't get to really do anything. Yeah, I think it's somewhere around there. I feel I'm feeling half a nip. Just too bad because the potential for better use of the female characters. They're they're, they're physically, they're What about the sequel where it's a daughter the daughter, I I don't remember enough in detail. I know a lot of the story revolves around a forbidden romance with because if there's a girl character, there's got to be a boy character who she wants to kiss. I'm Kiara. I don't know that she may have many wonderful qualities that escaped me. I don't remember. Um. Katie Golden has something to say about Lyon King to also she says, I have more beef with Lion King too. In this movie. Covu Scarce son also scar when I or he was like part of scars had ten years to fuck. Covu teaches Chiara, which is Simba's daughter, to hunt, which is ridiculous because females are the more proficient and more frequent hunters, although males do hunt some. So yeah, that's that's what Katie had to say. So thank you very much once again, thanks for all of that, and listen to Creature Feature for for more more and also a couples therapist and we're plugs of course, so yeah, I think like, yeah, half a nip for me half and can get back to young Nala same yeah, yeah, plug your stuff, Naomi, thanks for being here. Oh thanks friends. You know Couples Therapy. It's a podcast on the same network as Bechtel Cast. You should be able to find it drop Every Tuesday we have comics and sets together about their relationship Calen Jamie. We're in a recent episode meeting their friend fan fiction, so you can start there if you need something familiar and then work your way out. Yes, you can follow us at Bechtel Cast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We've got our Patreon aka Matreon, which is five dollars a month and gets you to bonus episodes every single month. This month in July, we've got America July, which includes American Pie and American Psycho. Um, so tune in for all that piping hot content, yes uh yeah, and then you can check out our t public store for all of our merch and so forth. And we are going to be in London on September one doing two shows, Brave and The Favorite, and I will I thought you're saying we were brave for doing We're going to London so close to Brexit, very brave um And so yeah, if if you live in the UK, come to that show, yes, yes, please. More details for that are on our website becktelcast dot com and that's where you can find other information about other upcoming live shows, including individual ones that both I and Jamie are doing from to n Prefreinge and uh. Other than that, I think we just just should all remember about the circle of life, how it moves us all. I love how yeah they the like opening sequence of this movie is like momento more kids, you will one day die here, like a lot of hard truths in landing, a lot of hard truths that well you're gonna You're all going to die someday. So thanks for blowing one of your last hours on the effects of cast. Okay, good night night